- THE WATCHMAN
The liberal press is starting to get involved in the gun debate. Time after time they claim those innocent people who own firearms and the NRA are to blame for the devastating number of mass shootings that this nation suffers. They imply that the United States has the largest number of mass shootings in the world. A quick trip to Google and a little research would always find the untruth in their statements. We could care less what they tell you, because we will give you the truth of the problem.
What brought this story to our attention was this article. Although well meaning in nature, it fails to provide its readers with all the facts. It fails to mention the number of incidents occurred in zones clearly marked as weapons not allowed. Depending on what government agency you decide to get your information from, that number is 86% using the Census Bureau statistics or 94% based on F.B.I statistics. It is believed that the shooters use these areas because of the lack of protection available to the citizens. What is truly remarkable is that with all the firearms in citizens hands, firearms are not the leading weapons used in murders.
We did a little research on the subject and found this article. It clearly states that according to the F.B.I. three times as many murders are committed with knives rather than firearms. Are we to become like London where knives are prohibited to the ;aw abiding citizens? I don’t think so. That would be ludicrous.
Even political pundits are getting into the argument. We found this article from a Fox News host. Although his proposal has its merits, we are of the opinion that this approach would only be effective about 50% of the time. It would not guarantee that people would be safe. We are sure that there would be a lot of Veterans who would be willing to do the job just for the tax breaks this idea holds.
So what would happen if these gun control measures were put into place, well we found this article about someone whose tried it. They used Australia as the test subject. They are trying to implement similar measures a lot closer to home. The same week of the El Paso and Dayton murders, the City of Chicago had 53 shooting incidents that led to the deaths of 19 individuals. None of those were considered mass murders, yet they have one of the highest murder rates in the country. You never here the lame stream media talk about Chicago though.
The way the media portrays it America has more gun violence than any other country in the world. This is another lie put out there to scare people and to get guns away from law abiding citizens. You can find out who has the worst simply by opening this link. You’ve read that right. France, Finland and Switzerland all have higher rates of gun violence than the United States. What’s really troubling is that liberals all seem to love these countries.
We don’t deny that there are a lot of guns owned in this country. How do the liberals balance this article proving it. So why don’t they mention the gun violence is on the decline? They don’t mention it because they want to take your guns away from you. They want this simply because they want you to be defenseless and enter the “New World Order” where you would have no rights at all.
After the tragedy at the Marjorie Stoneman High School n Parkland, Florida, the state of Florida formed a commission to investigate and make recommendations. We located this article on the about the findings of their efforts. In no simple terms they recommended the arming of teachers in the classrooms. We happen to agree with their conclusions.
As many of you know the State of Oklahoma passed Constitutional Carry that goes into effect on November 1st of this year. A Democrat Representative, Jason Lowe, has started a petition drive to repeal the law. Now we haven’t heard any mention on whether or not he obtained enough signatures for the petition to move forward. We found this article in the Muskogee Politico. It contains the response of the Chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party that is well worth reading.
We have all heard the phrase “When they outlaw guns only the outlaws will have them.” The shooting of several Philadelphia Police Officers this week is a prime example. We found this article about the shooter. He has numerous felony convictions but managed to get a firearm anyway. This is what armed criminals want.
We also found this reference about shooting in America. We will warn you that the information is dry reading, but the amount of information contained is worth the effort.
Now the only information we found only dates only cover through 2011, but you can see in the chart below that the violence by firearms is on the decline.
Nonfatal Firearm Violence, 1993-2011
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
Year
|
Firearm incidents
|
Firearm victims
|
Firearm crime rate
|
1993
|
1,222,701
|
1,529,742
|
7.3
|
1994
|
1,287,190
|
1,568,176
|
7.4
|
1995
|
1,028,933
|
1,193,241
|
5.5
|
1996
|
939,453
|
1,100,809
|
5.1
|
1997
|
882,885
|
1,024,088
|
4.7
|
1998
|
673,304
|
835,423
|
3.8
|
1999
|
523,613
|
640,919
|
2.9
|
2000
|
483,695
|
610,219
|
2.7
|
2001
|
506,954
|
563,109
|
2.5
|
2002
|
450,776
|
539,973
|
2.3
|
2003
|
385,037
|
467,345
|
2.0
|
2004
|
405,774
|
456,512
|
1.9
|
2005
|
446,365
|
503,534
|
2.1
|
2006
|
552,035
|
614,406
|
2.5
|
2007
|
448,414
|
554,780
|
2.2
|
2008
|
331,618
|
371,289
|
1.5
|
2009
|
383,390
|
410,108
|
1.6
|
2010
|
378,801
|
415,003
|
1.6
|
2011
|
414,562
|
467,321
|
1.8
|
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 1993-2011.
| |||
What organizations consider a mass shooting varies from group to group. All government agencies use the same standard of four, not including the shooter. All of them exclude the shooter as part of the mass murder. We have also provided an example of this below. The entire report can be found in this report.
Variation in How Mass Shootings Are Defined and Counted
| Source | Casualty Threshold(for injuries or deaths by firearm) | Location of Incident | Motivation of Shooter |
Number of U.S. Mass Shootings in 2015
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mother Jones(see Follman, Aronsen, and Pan, 2017) | Three fatal injuries(excluding shooter)* | Public | Indiscriminate(excludes crimes of armed robbery, gang violence, or domestic violence) |
7
|
| Gun Violence Archive(undated-a) | Four fatal or nonfatal injuries(excluding shooter) | Any | Any |
332
|
| Mass Shooting Tracker(undated) | Four fatal or nonfatal injuries(including shooter) | Any | Any |
371
|
| Mass Shootings in America database(Stanford Geospatial Center, undated) | Three fatal or nonfatal injuries(excluding shooter) | Any | Not identifiably related to gangs, drugs, or organized crime |
65
|
| Supplementary Homicide Reports (FBI)(see Puzzanchera, Chamberlin, and Kang, 2017) | The FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports do not define mass shooting but do provide information on the number of victims, and the reports have been used by researchers in conjunction with news reports or other data sources. | |||
* Before January 2013, the casualty threshold for Mother Jones was four fatal injuries (excluding the shooter).
In conclusion we find that the petition by Representative Jason Lowe is nothing more than a political ruse designed to get attention for his political campaign. It may also be to gain attention from the Democratic National Offices so he can seek higher political office.
We will continue to follow his petition and will do our best to keep you all informed.
No comments:
Post a Comment